


Brooklyn, Brooklyn. Take Me In.

by StarkAstarte



Series: Days of War, Nights of Love [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Angst, Angst and Feels, Brooklyn, Depression-era, First Time, Historical, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Red Hook Neighbourhood, Sexual Confusion, Teenagers, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, pre-WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:43:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1802446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkAstarte/pseuds/StarkAstarte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Bucky’s sixteen, and he’s just lost his virginity. For some reason, he don’t feel the way he thought he would. He’s confused and lonely and all he wants is Steve.]</p><p>Steve leans against him. Stiffens. Goes still. Turns his face to look into Bucky’s, not three inches away. “Christ, Bucky. You smell. Different. What is that, anyway?”</p><p>Bucky hesitates, palming the back of his neck. He shakes his head with a rueful chuckle. “That’s what a girl smells like, pal. When you. Make her feel good. It botherin’ you?”</p><p>Steve don’t answer. He keeps looking at Bucky sideways, the way he does when he’s considering how to feel about one of his best pal’s escapades. “You been with a girl tonight, Bucky?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Are You Aware The Shape I'm In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OwnThyself](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwnThyself/gifts).



> Title of fic and chapters taken from the wonderful song I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers, which is Steve and Bucky's song, as far as I'm concerned. This story is a sort of prequel to my other fic Hold Me And Tell Me We'll Burn Like Stars, though they can both be read separately. Just click the series link if you find yourself craving more!

Red Hook, Brooklyn, 1933

 

Bucky still stinks of sex when he ducks back into the dark closeness of his family’s apartment. He reeks of perfume and the musky sharpness of sweat underneath, both his and the girl’s. And something else, too. Something that ain’t like nothing he’s ever smelt of. He ain’t quite sure how to feel. The girl was sweet and pretty and Bucky made sure she had a good time. He’s real good with his mouth and hands. But he didn’t feel nothing much at all. He don’t even feel real different. His virginity was something he just felt like getting rid of, like an old coat he don’t wear no more. Now that it’s gone, he don’t hardly remember ever having it to begin with. No real loss. No real gain, neither. His own left hand knows him so much better.

He’s never really been all that innocent. He’s always been wised-up about things he ain’t got no business even thinking about. It makes him figure maybe he was born with something missing. It’s like he wasn’t never really a virgin like other boys. And anyways, it’s different, for fellas. Nothing much changes for them. Their bodies stay exactly the same, only the wanting gets stronger, maybe, now it’s got a taste of it. Goes deeper. Makes more of a ruckus. Bucky sure as hell don’t feel any less like something’s starving in him that ain’t never gonna get full. There’s a hungry mouth inside of him that ain’t done baring its teeth. He can feel it chewing on him. He can feel its claws and taste its breath, like maybe everything he done tonight’ll only make things worse. Only make it real angry on top of being hungry enough to eat up the whole of Brooklyn.

He made sure not to go after a girl who was a virgin, too. He picked one he couldn’t take nothing from. A dame who’d been around enough to know the score. Know what she wanted. Know what she was doing and what she’d like done back. Bucky felt like he’d settled up with her real even. No red in his ledger. Nothing owed. Her smell clings to him, rich and warm. The air in the apartment is close and still, like it's been sucked in and out too many times by too many people with too little to share out even between them. The taps in the bathroom down the hall’re on the fritz, so he can’t even take a proper shower. If he washes up in the sink, the clanging clamour of the pipes’ll wake up the whole goddamn tenement. The walls’re like paper. Like nothing at all stands between him and other people’s sad little lives. Like any minute he could fall right through into a whole other life even worse than the one he’s s’posed to be living, but ain’t.

He stands in the living room, the streetlights shining in through the listless curtains. A hazy, unkind glow casts itself over everything. The shabby furniture that ain’t seen a lick of polish in years. The battered old radio cabinet that don’t come in so good no more. Everything sunken in on itself like even the sofa and chairs’ve given up hope. Surrendered to a slow, endless decline. It still stinks like home. Boiled cabbage and drippings. A whiff of mildew that don’t never completely fade, even when summer’s baked the whole borough into a husk of cracking pavement and scorched brickwork. Bucky’s cologne’s faded completely. He smells like an animal in the darkness. He reeks of sex and the promise of death. Like it’s got his scent and is coming for him real quick, even it if takes eighty years to finish him off. He stands there in the dark in the place he’s supposed to call home, and somewhere out there, somebody’s goose-stepping over his grave.

He shivers. He don’t want to be here. He came here because there ain’t nowhere else to go at three in the goddamn morning reeking of cheap booze and wet pussy. He came back here cos Steve ain’t been feeling too hot, and Bucky don’t want to disturb what little rest he gets. At least he’ll be warm enough in the heat. Steve don’t need Bucky so much in summer. He don’t exactly thrive, even in August, but he’s a damned sight better than he is in the middle of January. Bucky don’t never want Steve to feel like he’s an invalid, like Bucky’s checking up on him every time he wants to see the little punk. But the desire to look on that stern little face, all fierce angles and soft lips is almost always near overpowering. Sometimes Bucky climbs up the fire escape and leans in through the open window, and just… _looks_. Steve’s plush mouth sucking in small, shallow breaths that, small as he is, don’t never go deep enough to fill him. The bright spill of his hair across the pillow at odds with the dark furrow of his eyebrows. His beautiful, articulate fingers clutching at the sheets the way he clings onto Bucky in the night when he’s curled around him, anchoring Steve Rogers to Brooklyn, two boys from Red Hook wrestling down the night.

Bucky sighs, rubbing the back of his head. His hair’s standing up crazy, the pomade gone soft and sticky in the heat. Dames love pushing their painted fingernails into his hair. Tugging on the rich thickness like as if he’s a goddamn horse, or something, and they wanna lead him somewheres he might not wanna go.  His clothes’re wilted. Only a ghost of starch remains in his collar, but it’s more than enough to irritate his skin. He feels clammy with the sweat of someone he’ll never see again. Her perfume stuffs its fingers up his nose, licks itself into every crevice. He don’t like the smell of perfume, much. He prefers. Skin. Soap. A whiff of aftershave. His own scent, or. Someone else’s. Someone small and clean who don’t have a lick of artifice about him. Bucky wants to wash the night off of him. A panic rises in him, desperate. _Get clean,_ it tells him. _Wash the stink of this pointless night off of you, asshole, and be clean again, like you was before._ But he can’t. He’ll just have to stink ’til morning.

Unless he gives in and goes to Steve’s.

There’s always plenty of water at the Rogers’ apartment, even if he has to boil some up on the stove to get it hot enough. And it’s quiet there like it ain’t never been quiet at the Barneses. Barnseses ain’t peaceful folks. They’re real restless. They got fight in them that don’t never really settle down, even when the punching’s done. Steve’s scrappy as hell, sure. But he ain’t got violence in him the same way Bucky does. Bucky’s violence ain’t about justice unless it has to do with Steve. Bucky just likes punching life in the breadbox for the hell of it. Steve gives him a reason, is all. The way he looks at Bucky every time he jumps grinning into the fray makes him feel like the big man on the block, and not just on account of his looks and his swagger. It ain’t about Bucky’s charm and _chutzpah_ with Steve. He don’t give a shit about that stuff. Steve looks at him and sees something good. Something noble, like he’s a goddamn white knight, or something. Bucky don’t never want to betray that, even though it ain’t even true. He ain’t never been nothing much. It’s Steve makes Bucky more than he’s got any right to be.

Before he knows he’s even decided anything, Bucky slips back into the panting maw of Brooklyn. The city swallows him without a word. He’s more at home out here than he is up there, crammed in elbows-to-ribs with his family. He don’t got much use for family he ain’t chosen for himself. Only one person qualifies, and he ain’t very far away. Three blocks by alleyway. Bucky’s feet know the way without being told. He smokes a quick gasper on the way, flicking ash like a breadcrumb trail leading back to the place he ain’t never wanted to be from.

He pulls himself up real easy on the rusted rungs of the fire escape. He’s tall and he’s strong. Like coiled rope in the shape of a sixteen-year-old Brooklyn boy who already looks like a man. He’s filled out real well, and the dames ain’t shy about letting him know, neither. Fellas of a certain kind’re even less shy about it. He just grins when they hoot at him, blowing kisses that don’t never land anywheres. He ain’t got nothing to hide and even less to prove when he’s out in the city alone, prowling around, looking for something he don’t know the shape of. Them boys and men who look at him, who bite their lips and let their eyes go dark with promises they’re more than willing to make good on—they make Bucky feel things he don’t never remember feeling with a dame in his arms. It scares him and it don’t. It scares him _cos_ it don’t. And that’s a whole ’nother kind of scared.

He picked a dame tonight, but he could just as easy’ve picked a fella. Easier, even. It wouldn’t’ve took half the trouble with dancing and drinks and sweet talk in dainty ears. But Bucky likes all that stuff about dames. Likes how they go soft in his arms. Their painted mouths falling open. Letting him in with tender sounds of surrender. It ain’t like he don’t _like_ dames. It’s more like. He feels comfortable with them. Like he can give them what they _both_ want. Something about that feels real good. Bucky knows what dames want cos he wants it even more, and it don’t hurt him none to give it to them. Not ’til after. When he’s alone, in the dark, and everything inside of him aches real bad and all he wants is to be where he is now. Standing just outside his best pal’s bedroom. Everything he loves in the world curled up and wheezing not three feet away. That’s when the ache’s more like a howl, and the teeth inside him’re knives cutting him up real good, from the root of his cock to the tangle of his heartstrings.

He don’t go inside straight off. Bucky likes to wait out on the fire escape, finishing up his cigarette so it don’t make it hard for Steve to breathe. The way Steve makes it hard for Bucky to breathe, sometimes, though it ain’t nearly the same thing. The cherry of his Lucky Strike burns in the darkness like a roman candle, stuttering in and out of life. When Bucky smokes, it’s like he’s celebrating Steve’s birthday with every breath. He don’t never tell anyone he thinks things like that. It’s damned nuts, is what it is. But as long as Steve don’t never find out, Bucky indulges his imagination in small ways like that. And anyways, he’s come so close to losing Steve so many times, that as far as he’s concerned, every goddamn _day_ is Steve Rogers’ birthday.

He hears something stirring real soft and quiet inside the apartment. Bucky knows the sound of Steve’s limbs sliding around between shabby sheets as he comes to life real well. He knows all Steve’s sounds like some of them nature kooks know every goddamn birdcall in the bush. Steve’ll be awake for at least an hour now, and cos he’s been feeling pretty okay lately, he’ll be talkative. Bucky flicks the cigarette away without finishing it. He leans his head back and to the side, blowing the last gust of smoke out into the night to join the rest of the poison pressing down on them. Bracing his arms real casual on the windowsill, Bucky leans into the close warmth of Steve’s tiny bedroom, not much bigger than a closet cos it probably was one, once. Steve’s lived in the same room since he was born. He’s nearly almost died in it more times than Bucky’s willing to count. He can see Steve blinking owlishly up at him, a tiny frown stapling his eyebrows together. He always wakes up looking slightly disgruntled, like the world’s youngest old man ready to shake his fist at everyone who offends his sense of right and wrong.

“Hey, pal,” Bucky says, grinning, his teeth white and gleaming in his shadowed face. “How’s tricks?”

“Fine, I think.” Steve’s voice is a rasp of hollow sweetness. Bucky’s hair stands up just feeling it slide into his ears. “What the hell time is it?”

“Dunno. Late. Early. Who cares?”

Steve struggles to sit against the battered headboard, huddling his knees against his narrow chest and wrapping them up in his scrawny arms. He peers at Bucky through the gloom like as if he can peel his outsides away just with his eyes. Undress everything hidden underneath. “You drunk, Bucky?”

“Nah. Not so much anymore. Burned it off, uh. Dancin’.”

“Can’tcha sleep?”

“Nope. Figured I’d come over here and fix it so’s you couldn’t, neither. How’m I doin’ so far?”

“You’re doin’ real good, champ. I ain’t gettin’ a wink.”

“Good. I ain’t lost my chops, then.”

“Nope.” Steve’s mouth hitches up at the corner. “You comin’ in, or what? I ain’t planning on spendin’ all night gazing up at you. In case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t one of your dames, Buck.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Bucky says. “’Course you ain’t. You ain’t pretty enough, for one thing, and for another, your gams is real scrawny, pal.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, and Bucky grins, even though his stomach lurches painfully and his heart gives a kick. His lies come so easy he almost believes them himself. Except for the way he breaks out into a sweat, teasing Steve like that over stuff he can’t never tell the truth about.

Bucky climbs in through the window, one leg at a time. It used to be harder to do this, then it was easy. Now it’s hard again. And not just cos of his new size and weight. He wades through the heat and darkness, making his way over to Steve’s bed. He feels the way the smaller boy near bounces off when he puts his full weight down on the mattress, and Bucky flings out an arm to steady him. His whole palm seems to enclose Steve’s chest. He lets it stay pressed against him for a heartbeat or two longer than he needs to, but he’s always been handsy with Steve, even when he ain’t drunk. Steve’ll push him away when he’s had enough. Usually he don’t kick up any kind of fuss at all, unless he feels like Bucky’s hovering. Bucky wonders what Steve’d do if he knew the real reason his best pal likes to put his hands all over him so much. He snatches his arm away, and settles in close, but not too close. The single wobbly streetlamp outside Steve’s building strokes its fingers over the fragile boy’s face. He looks so goddamn gorgeous Bucky don’t hardly know how to breathe.

Steve leans against him. Stiffens. Goes still. Turns his face to look into Bucky’s, not three inches away. “Christ, Bucky. You smell. Different. What is that, anyway?”

Bucky hesitates, palming the back of his neck. He shakes his head with a rueful chuckle. “That’s what a girl smells like, pal. When you. Make her feel good. It botherin’ you?”

Steve don’t answer. He keeps looking at Bucky sideways, the way he does when he’s considering how to feel about one of his best pal’s escapades. “You been with a girl tonight, Bucky?”

“Yeah. Figured it was time.”

“You’re only sixteen.”

“Seems like the right age to me.”

“I guess.” Steve mutters, staring at his hands. They’ve gone real tight, clutching the sheets. “Did she. Like it?”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah. Sure she did. She was a grown-up dame, Stevie, not a kid, and she wasn’t no virgin, so I didn’t hurt her none. Made sure she had a real good time, too.”

Steve frowns again. Thinking. “Does it usually. Hurt ’em?”

“Yeah, I guess so. When they ain’t used to it yet. I didn’t want that. And besides, girls who’re still virgins usually wanna wait ’til they get married. Or they want you to marry ’em, after. I figured a girl with more experience knows the score. Won’t think it’s somethin’ it ain’t.”

Bucky can feel himself start to talk, just like he can feel Steve start to get real quiet. If Steve don’t stop him, he’ll just keep on talking ’til the sun comes up, yammering on and on about nothing much at all. He clams up before he gets out of hand. Besides. He came over so he could hear Steve talk without gasping for breath. He don’t wanna waste none of it. Not one word from Steve Rogers’ mouth. But it looks like he’s said more’n enough himself to make Steve come over quiet.

The way he’s breathing, Bucky knows Steve’s still smelling him. There’s a curiosity to the subtle way he’s taking air in that makes Bucky feel self-conscious over stuff he’s never usually shy about. He stinks a lot of the time he comes over to Steve’s, and it’s never been a problem before. He works like a dog, and don’t nobody smell real gorgeous at the end of an August day in Red Hook. Nobody but Steve, who always smells of Ivory soap and pencil shavings. Like a little kid, still—sweet and untouched. It makes Bucky feel real tender. And dirty, too. He don’t never feel clean enough to be this close to Steve.

“Want me to get cleaned up?” he says quietly after awhile.

Steve looks at him. "Only if you want to, Buck."

Buck shrugs. “Yeah, I really should. The pipes’re on the fritz at our place again. No surprises there. So I figured on usin’ your facilities. Nobody’ll be up for a few hours yet, and I won’t get caught.”

“You never do.”

“Nah. Nobody can’t never catch me out. I’m like a deadly assassin.”

“Who likes to sing in the shower,” Steve says dryly.

“Shut up, you _know_ you love my singin’.”

“Yeah. I do, Buck. You got a real nice voice.”

“Aww, quit it, Steve. I know I sound like a goddamn magpie, squawking over nothin’”

“Not over nothing. You always got something to squawk about.”

“Gee. Thanks, pal.”

“Any time, Buck.”

 

He comes back dripping from the shower, his clothes clinging to him like corn-shucking. He likes to stay wet after a shower so he can keep cool as long as possible. He drapes his borrowed towel over the chair at Steve’s tiny desk. He throws himself down beside Steve on the bed, wallowing in the tangle of blanket and sheets like an overgrown puppy who don’t know he ain’t one no more. Steve smiles at him in lessening dark, and shivers, leaning into Bucky’s heat.

“How come you’re cold, Stevie? It’s like the seventh level of hell out there. I just showered and already I’m sweatin’ like a bastard.”

Steve shrugs. “Dunno. Can’t seem to get warm today.”

“Why didn’tcha tell me? I’d’ve come over earlier.”

Steve shakes his head, his grin twisting up a bit in a way Bucky don’t like to see. “How? By semaphore? Besides, you had a date.”

Bucky sucks his teeth. “So what? I’ve always got a date.” _With my best guy._ _Standing tradition._ “I coulda cancelled real easy.”

“But then you wouldn’t’ve. Uh.” Steve goes red and looks away. “ _You_ know. Been with that girl.”

Bucky shrugs. “There’s always another night. Another dame who’s got an itch.”

Steve looks back at him. “That all it is to you?”

“Sure. What more should it be? I’m givin’ exactly what I get. No harm, no foul.”

“Don’tcha ever want to fall in love? Get, I dunno, married?”

“Nah. Too much work. Why, d’ _you_?”

Steve’s smile is brittle, and there ain’t nothing jokey about it. “Nobody’s gonna marry me, Buck. Hell, girls won’t even look my way. Not when—” He shakes his head, biting the words off.

Bucky nudges him with a slick, bare shoulder. “Not when what, pal?”

Steve grimaces and sighs. “Not when you’re around. The handsomest fella on the block. Hell, the handsomest fella in Brooklyn. You think a girl’s ever gonna look away from your gorgeous mug long enough to glance down at mine?”

Bucky stares at him. A new knot ties itself up in his stomach. “I didn’t know it mattered to you so much.”

“It doesn’t, mostly. But you talkin’ about me gettin’ married is a laugh, Bucky. Don’t you know nobody can see anybody but you?”

Bucky’s heart kicks at his ribs. If only. Oh, if only Steve was talking about _himself_ when he said that. Bucky drags a shaking hand through his hair. Frowns, his mouth pulling in. “Don’t be sore, Steve. I can’t help it. If I could, I would.”

Steve shakes his head. “I ain’t sore, Buck. I just don’t feel like lyin’ to spare anyone’s feelings, tonight. Not yours, and definitely not mine.”

Bucky drags a hand over his face. Stubble scratches audibly against his palm. He shakes his head. “Them dames is all certifiable, Stevie. Anybody’d be the luckiest in the world to get to marry you.”

Steve scowls. Only looks prettier. “Stop makin’ fun of me, Buck. I’m bein’ serious.”

“So’m I, pal. So’m I.”

Steve rolls his eyes. Punches Bucky on the arm with surprising force. “Shut up, jerk.”

“Make me, punk.”

They sit there in the dark. Well, Steve sits. Bucky sprawls, his limbs taking up more room than is strictly fair, but Steve don’t seem to mind. They lean into each other, sharing Bucky’s warmth, Even Steven. Just like they share everything they got. Bucky can tell Steve’s feeling real thoughtful. He can practically hear the whirring of his brains. Bucky’s pretty sure he knows what it’s about. It ain’t like Steve’s got nobody else he can ask about that kind of stuff. He can’t exactly ask his ma everything he needs to know. Some things’re just between fellas. Bucky waits. He don’t push when Steve’s in this kinda mood. He knows he’ll get around to saying what’s on his mind eventually. And the dark’s real nice. Soothing. Bucky don’t wanna sleep, but he sure feels restful. Steve has a way of making him feel like maybe everything’s gonna be just fine.

It don’t take Steve long to work up to it after all.

“Buck?”

 Bucky rolls over to face him. “Yeah, Steve?”

“What was it…like?”

“What, bein’ with that girl?”

Steve nods. “You don’t haveta tell me. It’s just. I might never know, any other way.”

“You’ll know, pal,” Bucky says quickly. He shoves himself up so he’s sitting next to Steve proper, against the headboard, side by side. Like always. “You’ll know, when you meet the right girl. She’ll wanna give you everything she has, just like you’ll wanna give it to her.” His heart clenches. Feels like it’s punching him. He don’t wanna say these things. But he will. For Steve. Cos he knows it’s true. And he don’t _never_ want Steve to be lonely like Bucky’s gonna be, for the rest of his life.

Steve smiles hesitantly. “You think so, Buck?”

“Sure. Sure, I do, Stevie. You don’t want it like I had it. Trust me on that.”

Steve’s smile fades. He frowns, pursing his lips. “Why? Wasn’t it. Nice?”

Bucky picks at something invisible on the bedspread. Tries not to picture the spread of her thighs. The taste of her in his mouth. It don’t seem right. Not here. “Yeah, it felt real good, most of it. But it was lonely, too. I felt real lonely, after.” 

Steve thinks about it, biting his lip. His head tilted back so the silhouette of his throat stands out against the greyness of the Brooklyn skyline struggling towards dawn. “Maybe cos you were so close to somebody, and then you had to be just yourself, again.”

Bucky’s smile is too bitter for daylight, but he lets it come over him like a storm-warning. “Sure. Maybe that’s what it was. You always figure me out real good, Steve.”

But Bucky knows it ain’t like that at all. He wasn’t near as close to that girl as he is to Steve right now. Even though they ain’t hardly touching. Even though he ain’t got no right to touch Steve like he wants to. Lonely don’t even cover it, what he feels sitting here like this in Steve’s lumpy bed, a breath away from his own personal heaven.

Steve’s head starts to droop against his shoulder, and Bucky slides his arm reflexively around his delicate shoulders. “Hey, pal. You quittin’ on me?”

“Mmm. Tired.” Steve yawns against Bucky’s neck, and his skin prickles at the place where he can feel Steve’s breath. He startles at the slick swipe of Steve’s tongue as he darts it out to lick moisture back into his dry lips, and gets Bucky by mistake. He feels a thrill shoot through him he ain’t never felt before, even with his hand up a dame’s skirt. He flushes hot and dark, glad Steve can’t see him. He ain’t the blushing kind, but _Christ_. His cock hardens immediately. He’s so hard it hurts, a little. He’s never felt Steve’s mouth on him before. He’s only ever pressed his fingers against it to stop the bleeding when the little punk’s earned himself a fat lip.

He shouldn’t even be thinking about Steve’s lips like this. The kid’s only fifteen years old, for Chrissake. And he ain’t fifteen like Bucky was. He’s what fifteen _should_ be like. He’s like. Christ. He’s everything a fella oughtta be. Even though Bucky’s got all the strength and swagger, Steve’s an honest-to-God _man_. They handed out the right body for the job to the wrong guy. Only. Bucky can’t really be sorry. Steve’s so small and delicately made. He’s so beautiful. He makes Bucky feel sorta overgrown. Like there’s something wrong with him that ain’t wrong with Steve, no matter how all the fast dames and bent fellas stare. He don’t want Steve being nothing like him. Nothing at all.

He rolls Steve gently over, grabbing him by the hips and pulling him back down into bed. “Shove over, willya?” he says, sliding into bed beside his friend. Steve mutters, batting Bucky away, but settles into his arms easy enough. Bucky makes sure to keep his cock to himself. Steve’s real cold, despite the heat. Bucky’ll pretend it’s winter, and warm him up real good. They’ve only got a few hours before the sun’ll be blazing again. But Steve’s room stays dark for hours past sunup on account of how the building across the alley is so much taller. Dwarfs Steve’s building in its shadow so it don’t see no light most’ve the time. Kinda like Bucky does to Steve. Shelter’s a good thing, sure, but it ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be. There’s a fine line between sheltering something and stifling it. Bucky sure as hell don’t know if he’s got the hang of it or not. Might be he ain’t protecting Steve so much as he’s imprisoning him. His love is growing all out of hand, like one of them poisonous weeds in an abandoned lot kids shouldn’t never play in. If he don’t reign it in soon, he might make Steve not want him around so much no more.

That would kill him dead. His heart would just give in. For all his fight, Bucky ain’t strong enough to live in a world away from Steve. Steve Rogers is the only world Bucky wants to be in.

He waits to make sure Steve’s really asleep before letting himself drift off. He only ever feels restful here, in this tiny, stuffy room. It’s been his real home since he was nine years old. Steve’s breathing’s real slow and easy tonight. He almost sounds like a regular kid. Almost. But there’s a hitch in his breath, an erratic rhythm Bucky knows only too well. He pulls his friend closer. As close as he can get without opening his mouth and devouring Steve whole. Or tearing him open and climbing inside. He presses a soft kiss to the back of his neck. He kisses Steve so, so soft and tender. He breathes him in. He breathes for him. 


	2. That Woman, She's Got Eyes That Shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Rogers gives Bucky a gift. Bucky makes her a promise.

Steve’s already up and gone to school the next morning by the time Bucky rolls his ass outta bed. His head’s pounding a little, but it ain’t too bad. Nothing a little something from a greasy spoon won’t fix. Bucky ain’t got no work lined up for the day, so he’s free as a bird. He only wishes Steve was, too, but he’s real proud of him for sticking it out in school like Bucky couldn’t never’ve done. He ain’t no dummy when it comes to some things, but Steve’s got him licked in the brains department. He’s gonna make something of his life, so long’s Bucky does his job and makes sure he lives long enough to do it.

He creeps out softly into the living room. He’s only half-dressed in his pants and singlet, carrying his shoes and the rest of his clothes. He could take the fire escape, but he feels like going out the front door like a real human being and not like no ghost hanging around like yesterday’s laundry. He ain’t got nothing to hide and he ain’t done nothing wrong. Sometimes he needs to remind himself of that.

The Rogers' living room ain’t nothing fancier than what he’s got at home, but there’s something so much nicer about it. It smells better, for one thing. And the furniture all looks like it belongs together, even though it’s the same sort of battered mish-mash everyone else in Red Hook’s got gathered together, piecemeal and pathetic. Everything’s gleaming and dusted. The bare floors’ve been polished recently. The curtains are real cheerful. The way the sunlight streams through them makes it like they’re _s’posed_ to be threadbare. Like being old and shabby is some kinda virtue. Bucky stands there for a long time, just looking at everything. The flowered chintz of the curtains. The paisley fabric of the sofa with the ancient embroidered cushions some long-dead great-aunt’d worked in her Victorian girlhood. The photographs on the wall and gathered along the mantel of Steve and his ma, dead grandparents, distant cousins. A jumbled collection of Steve’s drawings over the years, curled at the edges where they ain’t tacked down proper. Faded picture-postcards of places ain’t nobody they know never gonna visit.

Bucky don’t like looking at the faded snapshots of the little blond boy who looks so much like Steve that he’d thought he _was_ Steve the first time he’d visited the apartment and looked at the pictures real close. _Nah,_ Steve’d said, matter-of-fact. _That’s my brother, Matthew. He’s in heaven now, Ma says. He wasn’t as strong as me. Never even met him. I didn’t meet Douglas, either, but we got no pictures of him. He died too soon._ Bucky gets the shivers just looking at the snaps now. Like as if it’s Steve’s ghost he’s seeing. The thing he’s gotta prevent, no matter what. He can’t never send Steve to where his brothers’ve gone. Not never.

There’s a really big portrait in a fancy frame all by itself on a wall that gets a lotta light. A sepia-toned man in uniform. Joseph Barnes, dead of mustard gas in the Great War. Steve don’t look like him much. Bucky stares at the photo for awhile, like he’s making some kinda promise to the long-dead man. _I won’t let nothing never happen to him._ It’s as close to a prayer as he ever gets, even when Steve drags him along to St. Mary Star of the Sea on Sundays when he ain’t working or too hungover. He don’t pray there like he does now, in this living room, without no words.

“James, you’re up,” The soft, oddly elegant-sounding voice with its slight underpinning of a long-faded Irish accent startles him out of his morbid communion with the Rogers dead. He spins around, still clutching his shirt but dropping his shoes.

“Hiya, Mrs. Rogers,” he manages. “Sorry I’m still here. Steve didn’t ’member to wake me up when he left, the punk, and you know I sleep like the—” He catches himself just in time. He don’t like saying nothing about being dead in front of Sarah Rogers. Not when everybody she’s ever loved is six feet under. Everybody but Steve. Bucky feels real superstitious about that, like an old Jewish _bubbe_ spitting three times to avert the Evil Eye.

Mrs. Rogers smiles. “You know you’re welcome here any time,” she tells him. Bucky likes the sound of her voice. She don’t screech and holler like other Brooklyn mothers. She sounds like she don’t come from nowhere so crude, but she don’t act like she’s better’n anybody else, neither. She’s a real lady. S’no wonder Stevie’s the kinda fella he is, with her as his ma. “We like having another man around the place. Come into the kitchen, and I’ll fix you something to eat.”

Bucky starts to protest, but Mrs. Rogers gives him a look he’s seen before, too many times to keep count. It’s the look Steve gets on his face when can’t nothing Bucky says budge him. So he grins and follows her into the cramped kitchen, still glowing from the compliment she paid him. It makes him feel like he really is Steve’s man. Like everybody knows it and nobody minds. It’s a pretty fancy he’s gonna dream over later, when can’t nobody see the look on his face.

Bucky shoves himself into one of the chairs at the tiny table that’s really only big enough for the two slender Rogerses. Steve gets all his looks from his ma. She’s real delicate and thin, with the same blond wisps of hair pinned up at the nape of her neck. Bucky can see the way her hair don’t quite conceal the knobs of her spine. Just like Steve’s. The gleam of rosary beads tucked below her collar make her neck look even smaller. Her eyes are Steve’s eyes, too, only older. More careworn, with little friendly crinkles cos even though she’s poor and worried, she still smiles a helluva lot. More’n Steve does. Steve’s a pretty serious fella. But Bucky can sure make him laugh ’til he’s gasping for but not quite running out of air. It’s a delicate art he’s honed real good over the years.

They don’t talk much while Mrs. Rogers stands at the stove, mucking around with something in a pot. Bucky likes how don’t nobody always gotta be talking his ear off when he’s at the Rogerses. Not like at home, where George and Winnifred Barnes’re always scrapping like cats in an alley, his ma’s eye a perpetual mess of purple and blue. Becky’s always whining about what other girls at school’ve got that she don’t, and Richie’s always picking on Danny, no matter how many times Bucky’s walloped him one over it. It ain’t a real peaceful place to eat breakfast. Or do nothing else, really. Bucky just sleeps and eats there when he can’t sleep or eat here.

Mrs. Rogers sets a bowl down in front of him filled to the brim with oatmeal, steaming hot and sprinkled with a precious spoonful of dark brown sugar. He shakes his head, looking at her, but she just raises her eyebrows like one of them school marms in old-fashioned movies and tells him to eat up. He digs his spoon in, and ain’t nothing never tasted so wonderful. Not even cotton candy at Coney Island. “Stevie have this, too?” he asks around his mouthful. “Kid’s too skinny for his own good.”

Mrs. Rogers grimaces and sighs. “He tried, James. His appetite’s never been too good in summer. You know that.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah. I know. Sorry.” He attacks the oatmeal with all the gusto he wishes Steve’d feel when it comes to mealtimes. Not that there’s ever much to eat, but he don’t even seem to want what little there is, sometimes. Half of what Bucky eats is the stuff Steve can’t seem to stomach. Like as if he can eat _for_ him, which don’t make no sense. Him getting stronger at Steve’s expense ain’t exactly what he has in mind.

Mrs. Rogers plunks down a chipped mug beside his unoccupied hand and another one for herself at the place across from him. Bucky can smell the bitter aroma of twice-boiled coffee, no milk, no sugar. It’ll taste like hell, but it always gets the job done. Mrs. Rogers drags a chair out and sits across from him, sighing as her delicate bones settle into the hard seat. The table’s so tiny their hands could touch if they wanted them to, and even if they didn’t and weren’t being careful. But they ain’t shy around each other. Never have been.

“Steve says you’re not going to school anymore.”

Bucky glances up at her, and drops his eyes back to his bowl. “I ain’t got no time for school, Mrs. Rogers. You know my dad don’t get much work. My ma needs my help.”

“I know that, James. You’ve always been such a good boy, despite all the trouble you seem to get yourself into.” She reaches across the table and strokes the wild mess of his hair. “Well, you’re not really a boy anymore, are you? You’ve changed so much, I don’t hardly recognize you.”

Bucky leans into the touch, blushing with pleasure. He ain’t a blusher, but damn if these Rogerses don’t seem to be able to bring out the pink in him at the drop of a hat. Mrs. Rogers tugs playfully on his hair before stroking her hand down his cheek to cup his jaw. They stare at each other for a minute, Bucky’s spoon halfway to his mouth. She’s like the ma he always wanted but didn't never let himself think could be real. He loves her far more than he loves anyone three blocks over. He don’t even feel bad about how he don’t feel bad about that.

He don’t touch her back. He just sits real still, and lets her touch him for as long as she wants. He don’t understand why she likes putting her hands on him as if she really loves him back, but it feels so nice he don’t never think about it too hard. He’s real glad Steve’s ma likes him. People’s mas don’t never really like him much. Don’t like his charm. Think he’s some kinda sweet-talking liar or cheat, sniffing after their daughters and corrupting their sons. Like any of them got anything he wants or needs when Steve Rogers is in the world.

She pats his face. “You need a shave, son. And a haircut. And you need to stop drinking so much.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah. I know. It just. Makes things real nice, sometimes. Makes me feel free.”

“None of us are free, James. You telling me you don’t know that, working like you do?”

He nods again. “I know. I sure do. But I don’t mind so much. As long’s Steve’s got everything he needs.”

Mrs. Rogers cocks her head. Bucky blushes even harder. He don’t know what’s wrong with him this morning. The booze must not be all outta his system, cos he’s talking sappy like he’s still drunk. “Steve’s lucky to have you, James. I’ve always thought so.”

He shakes his head so violently he can practically hear his teeth rattle. “Nah. _I’m_ the lucky one. Steve’s the best thing ever happened to me, even though he’s doin’ his damnedest to make sure I ain’t gonna see twenty with all my teeth still in my head.”

Sarah Rogers throws back her head and laughs. Bucky’s heart lurches at the way she looks so damned much like Steve. She ain’t strong, neither. Bucky worries about her something awful. He grins, but something in him starts up an ache that’ll stay with him all day. “That’s Steve,” she says. “Born with more fight in him than his body can hold.”

“Well, I got enough body for both of us,” Bucky says. And Mrs. Rogers grows real quiet and still, looking at him with his best pal’s eyes. His eyes go wide. He bites his lip so hard it feels like it might crack open. “I just meant—”

She lays a hand over his. “I know what you meant.” And she smiles real soft and sad, and Bucky feels like he might just lay down and die real quick and real quiet. He drops his eyes, squeezing them shut real tight until he’s seeing stars. He hears the scrape of the chair across the tile as Mrs. Rogers pushes back from the table. “Wait here, James. I’ve got something for you.”

Bucky waits ’til she leaves the room before opening his eyes again to survey his bowl. He scarfs the last few bites quickly and takes his dishes over to the sink, standing at the small window to drain the bitter dregs of his coffee. The dark liquid tastes like the bilge-water at the bottom of a trench. Or so he imagines. He don’t never want to find out for sure. Bucky cranes his neck to make sure Mrs. Rogers ain’t on her way back yet before digging his hand into the pocket of his trousers. He pulls out a few crumpled dollar bills and stuffs them hastily into the jar of housekeeping money the Rogerses keep on a shelf behind the flour. It ain’t got nothing in it but a nickel and a few pennies. He’s getting paid on Friday, and he’ll sneak some more in then, no matter how much hell he’ll catch from his dad over the lightness of his contribution.  He springs back like a scalded cat when Mrs. Rogers comes back in, her thin arms full of what looks like clothes.

“Here, James. I’ve been meaning to give these to you ever since your last growth spurt. I think you’re finally filled out enough now, and every man needs a good suit to see him through life. You take care of this, and it’ll take care of you, son.”

Bucky stares at her. He reaches out to stroke the fine dark wool. “Mrs. Rogers, I can’t. Ain’t that Mr. Rogers’ suit?”

She nods, smiling softly. “We never had a body to bury in it,” she says, and it ain’t morbid at all. Just true.

“Shouldn’t you. I dunno. Save it for Steve?”

Mrs. Rogers gives him a look, and then shakes her head, exasperated. “James, Steve’s never going to fit this suit. Not ever. It’s time we all accepted that. He’ll be real proud to see you wearing it instead.”

“Are you sure?” Bucky’s voice is small, all its new deepness evaporated. He’s ten years old again. He’s got no front teeth and his knees are scraped all to hell. He’s Trouble with a Capital T, and he’s praying to be asked to sit down to dinner, cos he don’t never wanna go home again.

“I’m sure,” Mrs. Rogers says, smiling. “And if you’re not sure too, James Buchanan Barnes, then you haven’t been paying attention. Now. Strip down to your shorts. I want to try this on you. Make sure it fits you like a man’s suit should.”

He does as he’s told, without even a hint of embarrassment. He’s been stripping off at Steve’s place since he was a little kid, and for all this talk of him being a man, he’s still a kid in Mrs. Rogers’ eyes. He can see the way she looks at him. Like as if she’s got another son who won’t never be a ghost. A son who’ll beat back Death with his bare knuckles if he’s got to, to protect the tiny blond boy they both love so much it might kill them if it could.

Bucky stands in his shorts and singlet, his feet bare and his hair a wild thickness standing straight up. He lifts his legs and arms obligingly as Mrs. Rogers dresses him in her dead husband’s things. The shirt is crisp and cool and freshly starched, a little old-fashioned, but so elegant it can’t be nothing but stylish. The trousers fit him real nice. Just a little bit too short, but Mrs. Rogers lets down the seams like it’s nothing. The waistcoat and jacket fit like they was made for him. He don’t even feel awkward about stealing a dead man’s threads, cos as soon as he’s got the suit on, it feels like home.

“There,” Mrs. Rogers nods, satisfied. “I knew it would look well on you. You remind me of Joseph, a bit. He was never so handsome as you, but you’ve got a similar build. His hair was dark, too. The colour suits you. That’s always important. Come on,” She tugs him by the arm. “Come and have a look.”

Bucky follows her into the larger bedroom. He ain’t never been inside it before. Him and Steve never played nowhere but in the living room and Steve’s little closet of a bedroom. The door to Mrs. Rogers’ room was always shut tight. Bucky used to imagine Mr. Rogers was in there, laid out on the bed with his hands crossed on his chest. Waiting for Mrs. Rogers to join him someday. It was a creepy thing to imagine, but it never scared him. It was comforting, somehow. Like Mrs. Rogers had somebody watching over her the way Steve has Bucky.

Of course, there ain’t no corpse on the bed. Everything’s neat and clean and shabby, just like the rest of the apartment. It smells like Mrs. Rogers, a scent Bucky ain’t never been able to pin down. Maybe lilac, maybe lavender. He ain’t never really smelled neither before, in the wild. He glances around and sees a snap in a frame on the nightside table beside the bed that’s much too big for one small lady. It’s one of Steve and Bucky, arms around each other, gap-toothed and grinning. One blond, one brunette. One smallish, one even smaller. The way the light hits them looks like it’s coming _from_ Steve. There’s a word for that, only Bucky don’t know what it is. He lets his fingers rest on the plain wooden frame. He remembers the day, but he don’t remember the picture being took. It’s a moment belonging to the three of them. He’s sure it’s Steve’s ma who took the snap with a borrowed camera, paid to have it printed like she does with any photograph of Steve. Bucky’s chest constricts with such a powerful kick of love and longing, he don’t think he can stand it. His whole chest pulls in like a drawstring pouch with too much in it.

“James,” Mrs. Rogers says beckoning him over to the only fine thing she owns. A full-length mirror in an elegantly-carved walnut frame. Bucky slides his hand away from the picture frame like he don’t never wanna let it go. It ain’t his, he knows. But it feels like it is. Just like Steve does.

He saunters over casual-like to stand next to Mrs. Rogers. She tugs him dead centre, so it’s only him he can see in the looking-glass. A haze of light falls around him so he’s like a paper cut-out against the darker room. He don’t look like himself. Despite the shock of hair that needs the business-end of a brush and comb real bad, and the dark gleam of stubble on his chin, he cleans up real good. He don’t look like a boy at all. He don’t look like Red Hook’s got his number for life. Not like this. He’s a real somebody decked out in clothes that don’t look they’re borrowed from the dead and more’n a decade or two old. He strokes his hands reverently over the crisp lapels, the row of buttons and the trim waistband. It’s a blue suit, dark as a summer sky at midnight, a fine pinstripe running through. Dark as Steve’s eyes when he looks back at Bucky in the night.

“You look like a film star,” Mrs. Rogers says, wonderingly, smoothing the fabric down his back and adjusting the way it lays across the broadness of his shoulders.

Bucky flushes. “Aw, hell, Mrs. Rogers,” he says. “It’s the suit does it. Anybody’d look sharp’n threads like these.”

She shakes her head, smiling up at him, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. “You’re the handsomest fella on the block, James Barnes. Isn’t Steve always saying so? And you know an artist understands all about faces.”

Bucky can’t say nothing against that, and Mrs. Rogers knows it. Anything Steve says’s always got him beat. He smiles, and does something he ain’t never done before. He dips his head down and lays a kiss on Mrs. Rogers’ pale cheek. Her skin’s as smooth as anything Bucky’s ever felt before, not covered in a film of powder like the dames he dances with on Saturday nights. She reaches her arms around his tapered waist and pulls him in close and tight, like she used to do when he was a kid, sometimes, though you couldn’t hardly never get him to sit still long enough for cuddling. He wasn’t used to affection, and it always made him squirm, even though he liked it more’n he could say. He goes real still now, puts his sturdy arms around her narrow shoulders, and tries not to knock her over. She’s as small as Steve, as blond and finely made. She put everything she was into her son, and now there’s two of them for Bucky to take care of. He’s the luckiest sonuvabitch this end of the Erie Basin.

She pats him fondly before pulling gently away. Bucky lets go quick or else he won’t be able to. “I’ve got a tie or two in the back of the closet gathering dust,” she tells him. “We’ll save some of those for Steve, but a man needs at least one tie to go with his suit. I think there might even be a red one, sort of flashy, that Joe never wore much. I think it’ll look real good on you.”

Bucky smiles. “Sounds real nice, Mrs. Rogers. I like red.”

She flashes him a quick smile, and her eyes look a bit raw, but still blue as anything Red Hook’s ever seen. She darts over to the closet, light as a girl, dancing. She starts rummaging around, muttering to herself. Bucky waits, jamming his hands into his pockets then snatching them back out again so’s he don’t wrinkle his jacket. He hears Mrs. Rogers stifle a sneeze, and then cough a little bit, and he thinks it’s maybe just the dust until she starts coughing for real, in the way he knows only too well. It’s a sound that terrifies him—clutches his guts in a knot. He springs over the bed and yanks her out of the closet where she’s stood doubled over, arms crossed and hanging onto her ribs.

She falls to the floor, coughing, and Bucky goes down with her as easy as he can, catching her up in his arms like a rag doll dropped by some careless kid. She’s shaking something fierce, and he rubs her back as she grabs at him, her face red and her eyes wide with a fear he ain’t never seen on her before. She coughs so hard, all he can do is hold her real tight against him, her face pressed into his chest, rosary beads under her blouse digging into both of them. He knows the drill. Sometimes Steve gets bad like this, and only holding him tight’ll help, else he’ll bust a rib. Bucky feels the familiar, dreaded spatter against his neck, and when she manages to heave in a few breaths, he peels her back enough to look down at her. She presses her fingers to her lips, but she can’t hide the gleaming streaks of blood. His shirt’s splashed, too. The red on the white like poppies, blooming. Bucky digs around in his breast pocket, and sure enough, there’s a handkerchief there, ironed and folded crisp and neat by the woman in his arms on some cold evening long ago.

She presses it to her mouth, still coughing but not as hard. Her eyes are still on Bucky’s face, like a magnet’s holding them there. He rubs her back again in slow circles. Her bones are like a bird’s, hollow and too near the surface.

“It’s real bad, ain’t it?” he says. His voice don’t break, but damn near.

She closes her eyes then, and heaves out a breath. Nods slow and smiles grimly. Her and Steve, always smiling when it hurts the most to do it. When there’s the least amount to laugh about. “He can’t know, James. Please.” Her voice is as rough as sandpaper, but still lovely as a broken bell.

He squeezes her shoulders real gentle. “He won’t hear it from me. But you oughta tell him, Mrs. Rogers. A fella’s got a right to know his ma’s sick.”

“I can’t,” she says, and he ain’t never heard her sound desperate before. “He’ll try to fix it, and there’s no fixing this, James. I’ve known it for some time. And soon enough, nobody’ll _need_ to tell him.”

Bucky nods again. It’s all he can seem to do, other than hold onto her both tight and gentle, like he holds Steve. Ain’t nobody never held Mrs. Rogers in a real long time, and he feels funny that it’s him, but glad, too. She rests her head wearily on his shoulder, and they sit like that for a long time. Just breathing the same air. Loving the same boy one of them’s gonna have to leave real soon.

After awhile, Mrs. Rogers sits up, neatening her hair with shaking fingers. Her breath hitches a little in her chest, but she sounds near enough to normal, nobody else’d notice. She’s got something other than the crumpled handkerchief clutched in her hand, and Bucky reaches out to unwind the bright slither of silk. Red as blood. Slippery as the inside of his cracking heart.

“Tie it on me, Mrs. Rogers?” he says softly. “I dunno how.”

She smiles shakily. Reaches to turn up his collar. Nudges his chin up and slips the tie around his neck. Does something seems more complicated than tying shoes, and then Bucky feels the peculiar pressure against the hollow of his throat that all the fellas on Wall Street must feel every day. Only he don’t feel like one of them slick sharks. He feels like somebody who’s ready to take a trolley into the heart of Harlem with his best guy on his arm.

“How does that feel?”

“It feels like a million bucks, Mrs. Rogers. Honest.”

She smiles. Strokes the flat of her hand over his cheek. Pinches the cleft of his chin between her thumb and finger and gives it a shake. “You remember what I said about that haircut. And the drinking. Steve’s going to need you to be real steady for him.”

“I’ll always be steady for Steve,” he says, choking up a little. “I swear on my life, though that ain’t worth much without Steve.”

“You’ll _always_ have Steve,” she says. “Always. Take care of him, James. Don’t you let him come after me.”

Bucky’s face crumples and he lets out an animal sob. He clutches her close against him again, and the bright splotches of blood the tie don’t completely cover up press into her face. It’s the only time he’ll ever hold her like this, like he’s got a right cos she’s the ma he never had. He makes it count. He makes it count real good. She rubs his back and says nonsense things. Her voice is like a lullaby. Her voice is like a bell, telling all the time she don’t got left.

“I’m scared, James,” she says, after awhile. Her voice like worn-out rag. Her eyes looking up at him are bright as polished dimes.

Bucky kisses her soft, again and again. Where the hair curls over her temple. The pinched place between her brows she gave like a copy of a latchkey to Steve. The softest part of her cheek and the place where her brow disappears into her hair. “Shhhh,” he tells her. “Shhh, it’s alright. I’m here. I’m always gonna be right here.”

 

Later, when Steve’s home, his room softly lit, and Bucky’s new shirt’s been washed and pressed so’s the blood don’t hardly show, he climbs back in through the fire escape, real careful so he don’t mess up his clothes. It don’t matter so much about the blood. Thanks to Steve, all his collars’re stained with it, and only a real sharp eye’d make it out.

Steve’s sitting in his chair, bent over his schoolwork. He’s wearing glasses like he’s got to when he reads or spends too long hunched over his sketchbook. He looks even more like an owly old man blinking up at Bucky through the horned rims of his specs. Bucky tries not to laugh, cos Steve’ll get sore. Won’t catch on to how much Bucky loves him like this. How much he loves every single thing Steve is and ain’t.

Steve’s eyes skitter over Bucky’s body. His close-shaved cheeks and freshly clipped hair all slicked back and shining. At the neatly turned hems of his suit and the flashy splash of his tie against the white of his shirt. “Hey, you look real swell, Buck,” he says, his mouth hitching up in the corner. “You got a date?”

“Nah.” Bucky perches on the edge of Steve’s desk, his feet kicking restlessly at the rungs of the chair until the smaller boy frowns and he quits it. “Thought maybe since I’m all dolled up, we can go dancin’.”

Steve frowns. “I ain’t got anything nice to wear like you do, Buck. Where’d you get that, anyway? Looks familiar.”

Bucky smiles. Pulls something sleek and shining out of his pocket. “You can wear this. You got that brown jacket that’ll go with it real nice.”

He dangles the tie so Steve can see how it’s the perfect blue for his eyes, though he won’t likely notice. Steve takes it in his hand, stroking it. He smiles. “That’s real nice, Buck. Thanks. But I don’t know how to dance, and besides. Nobody’ll let me in. I look like a ten-year-old on my best day.”

Bucky cuffs him playfully upside the head. “No, you don’t, pal. And besides—you let me worry about gettin’ in. I know a guy. I know lotsa guys, Steve. You can dance anywheres in this whole goddamn city you take a mind to.”

Steve smiles. It turns into a grin so slow Bucky can watch the whole thing happen like a picture show. “What about the dancing? You know I got two left feet.”

Bucky stands up. Leans over Steve to flick on the tiny transistor he got for Steve’s last birthday. The static gives way to the tinny strains of a canned melody, slow and sweet with clarinet. A dame starts singing something sad n' sappy enough to break your heart.  _"...Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky. Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together. Keeps raining all the time..."_   Bucky pulls Steve to his feet. Slides his arm around his waist and dips him back, grinning wolfish despite how his heart's cracking in his chest like it knows this song is his. Steve laughs, holding on tight. His tongue darts out to swipe at his lips and Bucky near drops him, he looks so kissable. “Bucky, what the hell d’you think you’re doin’?”

“Relax, pal,” Bucky says, his voice sweet and lowdown as a dancehall promise. “I’ll show ya everything you need to know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Bucky's teaching Steve to dance to is Stormy Weather, one of the big hits of 1933, recorded in Harlem by the incomparable Ethel Waters. Eat your heart out, Judy Garland! You ain't got nothin' on Ethel.


End file.
